Subject: Re: Default package use list
From: Erik Naggum <clerik@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/03/13
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3098772282118179@naggum.no>


* Marco Antoniotti -> Kent Pitman
| If I understood well what you just said, in order to write, if not quite
| "conforming", "maximally portable" code, it becomes imperative to know
| with accuracy the 'default-package-use-list' used in the major CL
| implementations.

  hm.  I have taken a somewhat differing view.  I always specify :USE to
  DEFPACKAGE and MAKE-PACKAGE, and so I know exactly what to expect.  in
  particular, you can get seriously burned if the default package-use-list
  happens to make two different packages share a symbol and you try to use
  it for something useful in both packages.

  e.g., I had been irritated at the rule that I could not define anything
  of interest for symbols in the COMMON-LISP package for quite a while, and
  made a habit out of turning off the annoying package-lock warnings in
  Allegro CL (Unix).  so I wrote a lot more code with this habit in place,
  and lo and behold, I used a name for a class that just happened to be in
  the COMMON-LISP package from two packages.  thus came enlightenment.

#:Erik
-- 
  God grant me serenity to accept the code I cannot change,
  courage to change the code I can, and wisdom to know the difference.